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Three shepherds and two sheep, for the Wendt und Kuehn Nativity. The nativity scene belongs to the few groups of figurines that Grete Wendt designed before she founded Wendt & Kühn. At the time she was studying at the Royal Saxon Academy of Applied Art in Dresden. The young artist was extremely fortunate to join the first class for women that it had ever offered. Before this, women had been denied access to the academy. The final stage of her course was a practical semester, which Grete Wendt completed at the Deutsche Werkstätten in Hellerau, now a district of Dresden. The company was an aspiring, modern enterprise. A part of the arts and crafts reform movement, it was considered to be one of the most important manufacturers of furniture designed by well-known artists. Laid out like an estate, the factory halls and their modern architecture must have made quite an impression on Grete Wendt when, in October 1910, she arrived to start her internship. Karl Schmidt, the founder of the Werkstätten, gave her her first commission - to design a nativity scene. Her design was manufactured externally by the company Th. Heymann in Grossolbersdorf, as at the time Grete Wendt did not yet own her own workshops. In 1911, shortly after she had designed the nativity set and the first samples had been made, the talented designer exhibited it at the Christmas exhibition of the King Albert Museum in Chemnitz (today the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz). During the two-week exhibition her nativity scene attracted much attention from visitors. While the exhibition was still going on, Grete Wendt received a request from the Dürerbund in Dresden to include her nativity scene in the product range of the Dresden Dürerhaus. At the time the Dürerbund was the leading cultural reform organization in the German-speaking world. Even more prestigious for the young designer was the fact that the request came directly from Ferdinand Avenarius, founder of the Dürerbund. At the same time many specialist…